CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – On NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the canister with space shuttle Atlantis’ Hubble Space Telescope payload inside heads for the open doors of the Canister Rotation Facility. The payload comprises four carriers holding various equipment for the mission. After rotation to horizontal, the canister will be transported back to Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility where the hardware will be stored until a new target launch date can be set for Atlantis’ STS-125 mission in 2009. Atlantis’ October target launch date was delayed after a device on board Hubble used in the storage and transmission of science data to Earth shut down on Sept. 27. Replacing the broken device will be added to Atlantis’ servicing mission to the telescope Photo credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs KSC-08pd3156

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Orion Service Module Umbilical (OSMU) Installation

S134E010329 - STS-134 - Flyaround View of the ISS taken after STS-134 Undocking

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - Moving past the 525-foot-high Vehicle Assembly Building, the red NASA engine pulls several containers enclosing segments of a solid rocket booster being returned to Utah for testing. The segments were part of the STS-114 stack. It is the first time actual flight segments that had been stacked for flight in the VAB are being returned for testing. They will undergo firing, which will enable inspectors to check the viability of the solid and verify the life expectancy for stacked segments.

A view of a building on the Space Transportation System construction site

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – As part of NASA's Ground Systems Development and Operations Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a large space shuttle-era work platform being removed from high bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB. The work is part of a center-wide modernization and refurbishment initiative to accommodate NASA’s Space Launch System and a variety of other spacecraft instead of the whole building supporting one design. The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program is developing the necessary ground systems, infrastructure and operational approaches required to safely process, assemble, transport and launch the next generation of rockets and spacecraft in support of NASA’s exploration objectives. Future work also will replace the antiquated communications, power and vehicle access resources with modern efficient systems. Some of the utilities and systems slated for replacement have been used since the VAB opened in 1965. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/ground/index.html Photo credit: NASA/ Charisse Nahser KSC-2012-5627

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The second solid rocket motor, or SRM, for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission, or OCO-2, is lifted into the mobile service tower next to the Delta II first stage at Space Launch Complex 2 on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Operations are underway to attach the Delta II rocket's three SRMs, known as graphite epoxy motors, to its first stage. OCO-2 is scheduled to launch into a polar Earth orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7320-10C rocket in July. Once in orbit, OCO-2 will collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere and provide scientists with a better idea of the chemical compound's impacts on climate change. Scientists will analyze this data to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that regulate the abundance and distribution of this important atmospheric gas. To learn more about OCO-2, visit http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov. Photo credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin KSC-2014-2146

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – On NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the canister with space shuttle Atlantis’ Hubble Space Telescope payload inside heads for the open doors of the Canister Rotation Facility. The payload comprises four carriers holding various equipment for the mission. After rotation to horizontal, the canister will be transported back to Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility where the hardware will be stored until a new target launch date can be set for Atlantis’ STS-125 mission in 2009. Atlantis’ October target launch date was delayed after a device on board Hubble used in the storage and transmission of science data to Earth shut down on Sept. 27. Replacing the broken device will be added to Atlantis’ servicing mission to the telescope Photo credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs KSC-08pd3156

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – On NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the canister with space shuttle Atlantis’ Hubble Space Telescope payload inside heads for the open doors of the Canister Rotation Facility. The payload comprises four carriers holding various equipment for the mission. After rotation to horizontal, the canister will be transported back to Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility where the hardware will be stored until a new target launch date can be set for Atlantis’ STS-125 mission in 2009. Atlantis’ October target launch date was delayed after a device on board Hubble used in the storage and transmission of science data to Earth shut down on Sept. 27. Replacing the broken device will be added to Atlantis’ servicing mission to the telescope Photo credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs

Space Shuttle Program

The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.